Eating meat with lower carbon footprint often means killing more animals
Lowering the carbon footprint of meat consumption often means shifting from beef to smaller animals like chicken or fish, raising the ethical question of whether killing many more animals with arguably similar capacity for suffering is acceptable. Commenters weigh utilitarian attempts to compare animal lives, the potential of insects, snails, lab-grown meat and plant-based diets, and broader trade‑offs between environmental impact and animal welfare. The conversation also branches into how to prioritize climate actions overall, from livestock’s share of emissions to the role of major industrial polluters and the limits of carbon-footprint accounting.
Humor and thought experiments
- Thread opens with jokes (pandas, koalas, blue whales, mammoths) to highlight how “calories per animal killed” can lead to odd conclusions.
- Some imagine future scenarios: braindead livestock or pure muscle cultures optimized for meat with minimal suffering.
Lab-grown vs conventional meat
- One camp says if lab-grown steak becomes indistinguishable, knowingly choosing the “animal death” version is morally disturbing.
- Others insist they’d still prefer meat from a real cow, valuing tradition, symbolism, or distrust of food corporations to keep lab meat “pure.”
- Disagreement on whether preferring animal-killed meat over identical lab meat is ethically neutral or “psychopathic.”
Human diet: nature, culture, and alternatives
- Several argue humans are naturally omnivores and that’s reflected in meat-eating across cultures.
- Others point to vegetarian traditions (e.g., some Native American and Indian communities) as counterexamples.
- Insects and lab-grown meat are proposed as low-footprint, potentially more ethical protein; some question insect sentience, others link evidence that invertebrate consciousness is plausible.
Valuing animal lives and suffering
- Debate on whether a cow’s life is “worth” more than a chicken’s or a fish’s, and what metric to use.
- Some suggest capacity for suffering as the core metric; others note we can’t access animals’ inner lives and differences are hard to quantify.
- Utilitarian-style “exchange rates” (e.g., one cow vs several chickens) are discussed but seen as arbitrary.
- Some point out that in practice humans reveal unequal valuations (children vs adults, mothers vs fetuses, etc.), even if they claim equality.
Tradeoffs, carbon, and priorities
- Many stress that environmental choices are full of tradeoffs (EVs vs mining, plastic vs heavy glass, cotton vs water use, fur vs microplastics).
- Some argue to focus on “super polluters” and largest emissions sources rather than marginal lifestyle tweaks.
- Others highlight that livestock is a substantial share of emissions and thus not a “tiny” problem.
- There’s pushback against carbon-footprint accounting from skeptics who compare it to “astrology” and emphasize natural sources like wildfires; others counter with data from cited reports.
- A minority view: simplest solution is to stop eating animals; others focus on “less but better” or local/hunted meat (e.g., venison), noting new risks like disease.